Category: Jewish Living

What if, for one day, we were slaves to nothing and no one? How would our lives be different?

That is the premise of Shabbat: the seventh day, the day of rest, the day when even God rested from the work of Creation. The problem of Shabbat, often, is that many of us are intimidated by the idea of a full-on shomer Shabbat experience. It’s just too much change, all at once, if you are starting at or near zero.

Instead, I’m offering you seven options for letting a little Shabbat into your own life. These are things that have worked for me and for my family. They may need to be modified for you and your family. You may only want to try ONE of them, or one of them may inspire you to your own path to Shabbat. That’s OK.

[For a more traditional set of information about Shabbat at home, there are excellent articles on My Jewish Learning.]

1. SHABBAT DINNER. What is dinner like at your house on an ordinary day? What would make it better? The answer to that will differ from one household to another. What if there were candles on Friday night? What if there were agreement ahead of time that there would be no criticizing or nagging? What if there were guests? What if no one had to cook, if it were all take-out? What if you used the good dishes? If any of these things sound like “work” to you, don’t go there, at least at first. Do something that makes you feel that you could say, “Tonight we are slaves to no one and nothing.”

2. TURN OFF THE CELL PHONE. Have you ever ignored someone right in front of you, perhaps someone you love, because something on the cell phone was Very Important Right Now? Not everyone can turn off their cell phone. Some are doctors on call, after all. But if you can, consider turning off the cell phone and try some old-fasioned conversation. Or just look and listen. Rabbi Micah Streiffer wrote recently about Shabbat as a remedy for Information Overload.

3. REACH OUT TO FAMILY. Shabbat can be a great time to reach out to family who are distant, maybe even as a routine. Do you have a child at college? A sister or a parent in another city? A brother with a busy life on the other side of town? If family is in town, but you never get together any more, maybe get together for a meal.

4. REACH OUT TO FRIENDS. When did you last hang out with your best friend? What about inviting them (and their family?) for dinner and board games? What about a Saturday afternoon bike ride, or hike in the park? If you have friends who celebrate Shabbat, ask them if you can join them for part of it, to get a taste of it. It really is OK to ask, as long as your are willing to take “no” for an answer.

5. GET SOME SLEEP. According to the L.A. Times, 75 million Americans do not get enough sleep. A Shabbat afternoon nap will not make up for a week of 4 hour nights, but it can go a long way to bring some shalom, some wholeness, back into life. Or instead of staying up to watch Leno or Ferguson or any of those late-night comics, turn in early on Friday night!

6. MOVE FOR JOY. Go to a park and play! Ride your bike! Play tag with your kids! Roughhouse with your dog! Get outdoors, find some nature, or unroll the yoga mat for a leisurely session of pure catlike pleasure. Get back in touch with your body. Get back in touch with your spouse’s body. We are created beings, physical beings, and it is not good for us to live in our heads all the time.

7. GATHER WITH OTHER JEWS. Gather with other Jews for Shabbat, at synagogue or the Jewish Community Center. If your town doesn’t have a synagogue or JCC, find out where the Jews gather. If services don’t speak to you, try Torah Study – many synagogues have a Torah Study group that meets on Shabbat, and it is often a group of friendly people who enjoy a bagel and a good discussion. Jewish life and Jewish learning is always richer in company.

These are just seven little possibilities. Follow your heart, follow the hearts in your household. Every family keeps Shabbat in its own way; if you begin the journey, something wonderful awaits!

Someone has invited you to your first Shabbat [Sabbath] dinner. Maybe you are “meeting the family” for the first time. Or maybe it’s just a friendly dinner. But you are not sure about the religious aspect: what’s expected? Here are five suggestions to help you be a great Shabbat dinner guest:

1. ASK QUESTIONS: Every family has their own customs about Shabbat dinner. Some are very formal, some equally informal. Asking a few questions ahead of time is essential:

What should I wear? Dress will differ from household to household, so ask. You don’t want to be the only one at the table in blue jeans, or in pearls, for that matter!

May I bring anything? The answer to that may be “Yes, bring —-” or it may be “just yourself!” If you are asked to bring something, be sure and ask if they would like it to be kosher, or if there are any restrictions you should know about: allergies, etc. Better to ask than to show up with something lethal, right? And even if the answer is “just yourself” it is nice to show up with flowers. Not required, but nice.

Finally, it is fine to ask questions about the prayers, the food, or the objects you see. Some things (a kiddush cup, for example, or a recipe) may come with family stories.

2. BE ON TIME. Your hosts may be juggling the hour of sundown, service times at their synagogue, hungry toddlers or other variables. Shabbat dinner is not a time to be “fashionably late.”

3. DON’T WORRY ABOUT HEBREW. There may or may not be Hebrew prayers or songs in Hebrew. If you feel awkward just listening, you have the option of saying “Amen,” at the end of prayers. As for singing, if you don’t know the words, you can tap your feet, or clap your hands, or just listen appreciatively. The dinner may begin with candlelighting and blessings over wine and bread. If you are not Jewish, you do not have to participate, just listen quietly and observe. Don’t worry that you do not speak Hebrew; many American Jews do not. It is a wonderful thing to learn Hebrew, but no one expects you to know it at your first Shabbat dinner!

4. COMMUNICATE! Shabbat dinner is not just about food. It is also about taking time to enjoy one another’s company. Treat each person at the table as if you expect to learn something important from them. Contribute to the conversation when you have something to say. In many Jewish households, friendly dispute is welcome at the table, but do keep the tone friendly! Off color jokes and off color language are out of place at the Shabbat dinner table.

5. SAY THANK YOU. Write your host afterward and thank them for including you. When you host your own Shabbat dinner (or a similar event from your own tradition) return the invitation!

My plan to “blog the Omer” took a left turn on Thursday evening, when I posted a commentary on You Don’t Mess with the Zohan to my Jewish Film blog. I said I thought it was racist garbage, and I suggested other films that do a better job of mining the humor in Arab-Jewish tensions.

Someone had a rather strong reaction to my take on the film. Instead of leaving a comment, he or she chose to hack my account and mess up a bunch of the links on the blog, so that all links from 2009 films led to the Zohan entry. What I can’t figure is whether they liked or hated the comment, since if they hated it, why lead everyone to it? And if they liked it, why not just comment?

On the other hand, someone is reading the film commentaries! I’m delighted. If someone out in Internet-land is a little less comfortable about movies that take cheap racist shots, I am doing my job.

Whatever the details, all my blogging time has gone to fixing those darn links, and dreaming up a password that will be harder to crack. I have continued to count the omer, but am only today back to blogging.

I am absolutely certain that God is laughing.

P.S. to the Link Switcher, if you are reading this: Leave me a comment, either here or better yet, on the Jewish Film blog, and tell me what you were trying to tell me with the links. Loved it? Hated it? Let’s argue! It’s more fun and less work, I promise.

Like this:

After hour depository of the old Exchange National Bank building, in downtown Tampa, Florida (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Sometimes I prepare for a class that simply doesn’t happen. I had one of those this week: I was to teach a three-week class on Food and Jewish Ethics, and the timing simply wasn’t right. There were not enough people signed up, and the management at Lehrhaus Judaica and I regretfully pulled the plug.

It’s a pity, because I was really excited about it. I was going to spend the first class meeting talking a bit about how Jews do ethics. Then we were going to brainstorm what ethical issues come up when one contemplates the dinner table, and choose two to four topics to hash out over the remaining classes. The specifics would be driven by their interests. But 10 am on Wednesdays was not a good time, despite some interest, so we’ll have to find another time slot and give it a go perhaps in the fall, perhaps in the evening.

So, was the preparation a waste? Not at all. For one thing, those lovingly prepared lesson plans are waiting in my Dropbox folder for another opportunity. All I will need to do is refresh my memory, see if any new ideas have sprouted in the back of my mind since I prepared them, and I’m off to the races. So that’s all good.

But there’s a deeper reason why it wasn’t a waste: time spent studying Torah is never wasted. I approach my own table now with renewed awareness. When I pick up a piece of nice matzah, I am drawn to read the back of the box: where did it come from? Who made it? When I look at the vegetables in the fridge, I am much more aware of a host of issues. The chapters I read on hunger led to check on the status supplies at my local food bank (not good), leading me to dig a little deeper for tzedakah.

As Mishnah Peah 1.1 says, “Talmud Torah keneged kulam” — “the study of Torah leads to them all” [the things that are valuable both in this world and in the world to come.]

Like this:

Yosi ben Yochanan of Jerusalem said: Let your house be wide open and let the poor be members of thy household; and do not talk much with women. This was said about one’s own wife; how much more so about the wife of one’s neighbor. Therefore the sages have said: He who talks too much with women brings evil upon himself and neglects the study of the Torah and will in the end inherit Gehenna. — Pirkei Avot 1.5

This verse from Mishnah begins with sentiments that are challenging but easy to affirm: let your house be wide open! Let the poor be members of your household! Then it serves up what looks to be the worst sort of misogyny.

When I see something troubling in a text, the first thing I do is back up and look at the Hebrew. What EXACTLY does it say? Here’s a very literal translation:

Yosi ben Yochanan, a man of Jerusalem, says: let your house be wide open, and let the poor be members of your household. But do not engage in excessive conversation with the woman. In speaking to his wife, so much the more so his friend’s wife. Therefore the sages say, excessive conversation with the woman causes evil to himself and neglect of Torah and he will eventually inherit Gehinnom.

At first reading, that’s not much better.

Short of shrieking and throwing the verse away, I see only one possible way out with this text. That’s the phrase תרבה שיחה, which I translated as “excessive conversation.” We might also read it as “too long a conversation.”

Excessive how? Too long for what? Let’s look at context. The verse begins with two statements about the household: “let your house be wide open” and “let the poor be members of your household.” In the patriarchal society of the sages, the household was women’s domain, specifically, the wife’s domain.

Given this context, is it not possible that this is a warning to the men to back off and not interfere in the domain of their wives? That also makes sense of the phrase, “so much more so his friend’s wife”: Don’t tell your wife how to run her house, and definitely don’t tell your friend’s wife how to do so!

There is also a detail in the text that most translations gloss over that supports this interpretation. The phrase “the woman,” repeated twice in this verse, includes the definite article: it is not “all women” but a particular woman about whom Yosi ben Yochanan is speaking. HaIshah, the woman, can also be translated “the wife.”

So let me try for a paraphrase:

Yosi ben Yochanan, a man of Jerusalem, says: let your house be wide open, and let the poor be members of your household. But do not micro-manage your spouse about it, much less the spouses of your colleagues. Nothing good will come of it; it will lead to neglect of Torah and a bad end.

I believe this text may be read not as a misogynist rant, but as a reminder to the men that they are not the bosses, or the experts, of everything. They should not meddle in the domain of their wives, and meddling in how other people’s homes are run is even worse.

What can this teach us today? Stay humble. Remember that everyone has his or her area of expertise. The large principles are good — don’t neglect those first two items! — but I should respect the expertise of others, no matter how much Torah I think I know.

Like this:

The Aleppo Codex, a manuscript of the Tanakh.. The Masoretic scholars wrote it in the early 10th century, probably in Tiberias, Israel. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Pirkei Avot 1.1: Moses received the Torah from Sinai and transmitted it to Joshua; Joshua to the elders; the elders to the prophets; and the prophets handed it down to the men of the Great Assembly. They said three things: Be deliberate in judgment, raise up many disciples, and make a fence around the Torah.

The transmission of Torah is like a bucket brigade: starting with God on Sinai, the Torah has been handed down, hand to hand, from that day to this. We call this the sharsheret shel masoret, the chain of tradition.

Once, in the British Library in London, I saw a 9th century text of the Tanakh with the te’amim (cantillation marks – the musical notations) in it, and I was able to stand at the case where it was displayed and chant the text softly to myself. That codex was ancient — more than a thousand years old! — but I could read it just fine. That was the first time I really felt the weight of that chain of tradition. I could imagine the masorete who wrote that book teaching his student… and then the student teaching his student… down through the centuries until Cantor Lam taught Cantor Keys and Cantor Keys taught me.

The same is true of every d’var Torah — every word of Torah — that I know. Someone taught it to me. God willing, I will teach it to others.

A hundred years from now, I do not expect that many people, if any, will remember me. But I take great comfort and pride in the knowledge that the students of my students will still be learning Torah and teaching it to their children and their students. I may be just a link in the chain — but what a chain!

In my effort to get myself to do it properly and on time, I have asked this question and looked for answers. Here are some ideas about why we count the Omer.

(1). GOD SAID TO: “You shall count from the eve of the second day of Pesach, when an omer of grain is to be brought as an offering, seven complete weeks. The day after the seventh week of your counting will make fifty days, and you shall present a new meal offering to God (Leviticus 23:15-16).” In other words, God said to make sacrifices to mark these days. We don’t have the Temple anymore, so instead we count after dinner each night.

(2) IT CONNECTS PASSOVER TO SHAVUOT: Passover is a big holiday of celebration. We celebrate freedom, which is mostly a happy thing (no more slavery, yay!) By preserving the count of the Omer, even without the Temple, the rabbis are reminding us that the Passover is not truly complete until we commemorate the giving of the Torah at Sinai on Shavuot. Freedom without responsibility is incomplete and unreal. By counting, we remind ourselves that the process is not yet finished.

(3) SELF IMPROVEMENT: In preparation to receive the Torah, we work to become better Jews. The Kabbalists point out that the Omer is counted for seven weeks of seven days, and they match them with the seven sefirot through which God interacts with the world. Each of the seven days within those weeks are matched with the sefirot, also, and those various permutations of Godliness provide an opportunity for study and self improvement. Another tradition is to read and study Pirkei Avot [the first chapter of the Mishnah, which consists mostly of advice on proper behavior and attitude] during this season.

(4) AN EXPRESSION OF ANTICIPATION: When we are excited about something, we count the days to that event. It is also true that when we behave a particular way, we cultivate the emotions and the thoughts that go with that behavior. When we count the Omer, we cultivate excitement about Torah in our lives.

(5) MINDFULNESS: This one is my own, as far as I know. I know that the reason I never make it through the omer is that I get distracted. 49 days is a long time to do anything, especially something as small and easy to forget as an additional blessing after eating. This year I want to improve my attention span for Torah. I want to be mindful of Jewish time, and in the process, perhaps make better use of my time.

If you count the Omer, why do you do it? Do you know any additional reasons for counting?